shoemaker could possibly
choose for a pattern.

Three days after that the shoes were finished, a bonnie wee pair of
crimson ones, in the softest of kid-leather; and when Mabel came to
fetch them, and tried them on, they fitted like a glove. She drew them
both on, and danced round the room to show how delighted she was. And
dear! how lovely they looked, all three--Mabel and the little red
shoes!!

Poor deformed Caspar smiled as he watched her, and felt happy to have
rendered her so happy.

"I love to see you, little Mabel," he said, "and that is why I shall
shut up my workshop on Midsummer-day, and go out to the common when you
are crowned 'Queen o' the May.' I only wish the sky may be as blue--as
blue--as your eyes are, Mabel!" And then the crooked little cobbler
stammered and blushed at his own forwardness in paying such a compliment
to the prettiest maiden in the land.

But little Mabel said, "I will watch out for you, Caspar. I shall care
for nobody on all the green so much as you."

Caspar could scarcely quite believe little Mabel when she said this; yet
he was greatly touched by her kindness, and he promised to go and look
at her from afar.

When Midsummer-day dawned over that old city the weather was
beautiful--the sky, as blue as Mabel's eyes; and young and old flocked
out to bask in the sunshine, and enjoy the games and the merry-making.
Even the king sallied forth from his castle, accompanied by his
courtiers, to favour with his presence the time-honoured custom of
crowning the May-queen.

When he beheld little Mabel he exclaimed, "What a lovely maiden, fit to
be a princess!"

Caspar was standing quite near, and heard it with his own ears. He
expected after that to see Mabel drop a curtsey to the king. But no, the
little maiden looked straight at him--poor Caspar--instead, and with her
queen's flowery wand, pointed down to her bonnie crimson shoes.

The cobbler of Cobweb Corner was becoming dazed with happiness. Curious
thoughts about his fairy-godmother crept into his head; strange thrills
of pleasure and of pain shot through his dwarfish frame, and turned him
well-nigh sick with emotion. It seemed to Caspar that he had grown older
and younger in that one summer day. He felt giddy, and suddenly longed
for his quiet attic in Cobweb Corner.

He stole silently away, and had left the crowd behind him on the Common,
when he suddenly became aware of a tiny hand slipped into his own; and,
looking down